Something More
by SolidScriptJess
Summary: When Natsu accidentally cuts off a chunk of Lucy's blond hair, he finds in the girl something much more than he ever bargained for: love. Nalu One-Shot.


The story of Lucy Heartfilia and Natsu Dragneel was not an easy one.

It wasn't one straight from the movies, where their eyes met across from the room and they instantly fell into this great, miraculous love that made them see stars as they spiraled up into the happiest, most perfect relationship that they'd ever known. In fact, if you looked at it, their relationship was actually the most difficult obstacle they'd ever had to overcome in life.

And it had all started with a strand of hair.

In the first semester of their senior year, Lucy was the new girl of Fairy Tail High. She had blond hair that travelled down the curves of slender arms to tickle at her elbows, and always wore shirts with a neckline just an inch too low to be considered modest, revealing swatches of creamy, pale skin that always flushed red whenever she was the tiniest bit worked up. She sat right by one of the many open windows in the classroom, and right next to Natsu's sworn enemy, Gajeel Redfox. Though the pair had been slightly awkward and standoffish towards each other at first, Natsu had watched from his seat behind them as Lucy and Gajeel gradually blossomed into a kindred friendship.

Every day, Natsu would lean back in his chair, hands knotted behind his head, and would watch the hulking piece of meat that was Gajeel make the prettiest smile light up her big, brown eyes. Often, Gajeel would lean over and sneer something that would make Lucy throw her head backward with laughter. The sound would always grate at Natsu's ears—it was loud, bouncy, and ungraceful in all senses of the word. After hearing it so many times in the first month of school, Natsu felt ready to smack to his head against the table if he heard it again.

So when he saw the familiar, telltale smirk that crept up one side of Gajeels face as it usually did right before he was about to tell a joke, Natsu was quick to intervene. Thrusting his hand around in his backpack, he produced a pair of scissors and leaned forward in his seat so that his stomach was pressed against the wood of his desk and his face was right behind Gajeel's.

"Oi, metal face," Natsu lazily called, twirling the scissors around one finger.

Scowling, Gajeel turned around in his seat. His piercings were glinting in the sunlight streaming in. "What the hell do you want, flame breath?"

"I wonder what ya would look like with short hair."

"The fu—"

Before Gajeel could get the words out, Natsu lunged forward with a manic grin spreading across his face, snipping the scissors about Gajeel's head wildly. Gajeel shouted obscenities and kept punching at Natsu in between making sure his precious, black mane remained intact.

And then it happened.

In a particular case of bad timing that would soon become characteristic of Lucy and Natsu's relationship, a strong gust of wind blew through the open window Lucy sat beside. Her long, golden locks that were always grabbing Natsu's attention during boring lessons fluttered up with the wind just as Gajeel pushed away Natsu's hand, just as Natsu had snipped the scissors closed.

There was a muffed crunch, and then blond strands were floating to the floor, shimmering in the sunlight like they always did, all the way down. In all the chaos, Natsu had managed to cut a rather large section of Lucy's hair so that it tickled her chin instead of her elbow. She grasped the newly-shortened strands with trembling fingers and pulled them forward to stare at them with those wide brown eyes that always seemed so happy to Natsu.

Now they were murderous.

After getting his ass kicked by Lucy and all of her friends (as Gray and Gajeel laughed the whole time), Natsu came to school the next day with his head hung low and his hands stuffed in his pockets. His heart was racing with the thought of having to sit behind the blond-haired demon for the rest of the day, and sweat was leaking down the back of his neck. When he got to the entrance of the classroom, he found himself tugging at the knot of his tie until it was just loosely dangling off his neck; it didn't make it any easier to breathe.

 _Come on, Dragneel,_ he pep-talked himself. _Just go in there and face her like the man you are. What's the worst that could happen? Well, she could try to strangle you again, but that was nothing—_

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you actually planning on going in at some point?"

A shiver raced down the length of Natsu's back. Completely different from her obnoxious laugh, Lucy's voice was distinct in that it was permanently sweet and warm, like fresh honey. Even when she was furious—and if the red of her face was any indicator, she absolutely _was_ furious with him right then—it still held some of that warmth.

Natsu gulped when he took in her appearance. The previous morning, Natsu had filed into the classroom behind Lucy, staring at the way her long hair swayed with every movement she made, as if it was dancing in celebration at her existence; that morning, it was all chopped off to the same length as the one section he had cut, dangling limply around the curve of her small ears, and the soft bend of her jaw. It made her look vulnerable and much younger than her eighteen years.

Noticing he was staring, Lucy huffed and ruffled the back of her hair a little. "I know it looks bad, but its your fault that it's like this. The least you could do is not stare at it."

 _Bad?_

Natsu blinked a couple times, then, on complete impulse, plucked up a strand of her hair. It was silk between his calloused fingers as he pretended to consider it. He could feel her eyes on him; the soft breaths passing between her parted lips on the curve of his thumb.

He let the strand drop and shrugged. As he stepped inside the classroom, he called over his shoulder, "It's cute."

Somehow, those must have been the right words to say. As the heat of summer melted away into cool fall mornings, Lucy began to warm up to Natsu. Saying good morning and good bye to each other grew into talking about the weather and that grew into exchanging funny faces whenever their eyes met and that grew into passing notes, which grew to them exchanging numbers. Soon they were in constant contact, texting beneath their desks during class and telling each other all the little details of their lives in the hours outside of class.

When Natsu began struggling in English, Lucy began opening up her house to him every Thursday night for tutoring. But every time, it'd end up in them throwing at each other the snacks she'd set out, or arguing about whether the blossoming romance between Gajeel and Levy was cute or just plain weird, or watching a documentary about aliens that Natsu had turned on the TV while Lucy was in the bathroom, and no studying would actually get done. So, as an incentive to get him to work, Lucy proposed the bargain that if Natsu could work diligently for the whole three hours of their study session, then he could come over the next day to goof off.

This turned into may late-night movie marathons with Lucy's legs thrown across his lap as she wrapped up in a blanket, a headband pushing her hair back in a way that made her look so ridiculous that he was always struggling not to laugh whenever he looked at her. If he ever did laugh, she would hit him and threaten an ice cream embargo for the night until he got on his knees and begged for her to lift it. Some nights, if they couldn't think of what to watch, they'd go up to Lucy's pink, lace-filled bedroom and climb through the window onto the roof. They'd lie close enough for their thighs to touch and fingers to brush, and watch the sky turn from inky black to milky blue. Lucy would tell him stories about all the constellations visible that night, and he would add to them by giving personalities of all different sorts to every one of the names she prattled off. Each new one he made up would send her unravelling into a fit of laughter, and under the light of the moon, with her in snowmen pajama pants, wearing that ridiculous headband, he found himself finding that boisterous, obnoxious laugh less annoying and more colorful. It lit up the world around him and rose goosebumps on his skin.

Winter approached quickly like this, and as the new best friends lay side by side out on the roof for probably the last time that season given the calls for snow the very next weekend, Natsu couldn't help but notice how much Lucy's hair had already grown in the past months. It tickled at her shoulder then, calling attention to a freckle on her right shoulder, just beside the collarbone, that he had never noticed before.

He had been staring at that freckle, exposed by the tank top Lucy was wearing, when her honey voice startled him.

"Are you even listening?" she demanded, cheeks puffed out slightly.

Trying to contain his smile the best he could, he replied, "'Course I am."

She huffed. "Okay, so then should say yes?"

Natsu had no clue what she was talking about, having not heard a word of what she was going off about as he was too busy noticing how weirdly _cute_ that random freckle was. But he didn't want to be caught, so he nodded vigorously and mumbled his affirmation.

"Totally. Go for it."

Lucy stared at him for a long time after he said that. Most nights, he could read her easily, as her features would be highlighted by the shine of the moon, and it was plain knowledge that Lucy was horrible at hiding what she was feeling, but on that night there were clouds masking the entire sky. He could barely even make out the depths of her eyes and the downward slope of her lips. He leaned forward slightly, trying to decipher through her silence, but all at once she stood and gathered up the blanket she had been lying on, mumbling something about being tired before ducking inside her room.

It wasn't until the next day that Natsu figured out what she had been asking his opinion on. Apparently, the day before, a boy in their grade named Dan had asked Lucy to the winter formal, but she had told him she had to think about it. That's what she'd been asking Natsu—if she should go with Dan. So after Natsu had unknowingly given the go ahead, Lucy had given Dan her 'yes,' and the news was spreading through the school like wildfire as Lucy remained as cool towards Natsu as she had been when she first transferred.

Frankly, Natsu didn't mind the space Lucy was giving him. Every day, Levy, Erza, and Juvia would swarm around Lucy's desk and the girls would all discuss their plans for the dance: dresses, flowers, hair styles, color palettes. He didn't understand most of it, but he did know that every time he imagined Lucy wearing anything she discussed while dancing in the arms of Dan made him uncomfortable to the point of having to loosen his tie. As the week went on, Natsu began to become painfully aware of the fact that he did not like the idea of Lucy with anyone _but_ him. He should be the one to tell her she looks beautiful in her dress, to spin her around on the dance floor to her favorite song, to whisper words in her ear that would make her throw her head back and laugh as everything about her glowed. He should be the one making her blush and smile and nervously twirl strands of her golden hair.

But, in another case of bad timing, Natsu hadn't been paying attention to Lucy for once in his life, and missed the opportunity to tell her not to go with him. And when he saw how happy she looked when she discussed her plans with her friends, he couldn't find the guts in him to confess his newfound feelings.

So they avoided each other all week and when Friday came, Natsu found himself at home playing with his cat instead of at Lucy's house raiding her fridge while she yelled at swatted at him like he should be. From his bed, Natsu watched Happy nudge a pouch of cat nip around with his blue paws, imagining how beautiful she must have been looking until he eventually fell into a restless sleep still in his school uniform.

By Monday, Lucy and Dan were dating.

Their relationship lasted until early March.

During those three months in between, Natsu didn't see much of Lucy, and the distance that had been between them the week prior to the dance began to fester and metastasize. Daily texts turned into weekly. Tutoring sessions ended when winter break began and didn't pick up in the new semester. Their teacher reassigned seats when they came back to school, too, and the pair found themselves on opposite ends. He stared at the back of her head often, but she hardly spared him even a lick of attention other then a short hello and a quick goodbye if she happened to run into him on her way out of class to meet Dan at his locker.

Lucy spent most of her time on dates with Dan—she would post a new picture of them together every time they met up—and Natsu spent most of his time alone at home playing video games or re-watching some of the B-rated movies him and Lucy used to watch together. Occasionally he would hang out with the entire group of his friends, but when Lucy started bringing Dan along he stopped going. Seeing another man's arms around her, seeing her send another man the smile that used to be reserved just for him alone, and seeing them kiss tenderly in what they thought was a stolen moment unnoticed by the rest of the group—it was all too much for Natsu. Their relationship was everything he wished he could have with Lucy—it was perfect.

Except that Dan had been cheating on Lucy the entire time.

It was late on the first Saturday of March when Natsu opened his front door to reveal the sobbing, shuddering mess that Lucy had been dissolved to. Makeup ran down her face, her hair-now tickling the tops of her prominent chest-was a dull, ratty mess, and every inch of her skin that he could see was flushed. She collapsed into his arms, clutching at the thin material of his shirt and burying her face in his scarf.

"I—I know we haven't been talking much and that—that I've been a really terrible friend, b—but I didn't know who else—"

Shushing her softly, Natsu wrapped his arms around her, stroking the back of her head in the way that she had told him her mother used to calm her down with. "Come on, Luce. Let's get ya inside."

On his couch, wrapped in the embrace of Natsu and two blankets, Lucy confessed Dan's dirty secret. She cried and vented about how she felt dirty, ugly, and worthless until she no longer had any energy to do anything more than sit there and let stray tears run down her cheeks. When she had quieted down enough, Natsu rocked her back and forth, rubbing soothing circles across her back, and whispered every thought he'd ever had about her. He told her about how he could listen to her laugh for hours without getting tired, how her smile always made him forget how to breathe, how she looked more beautiful every day he saw her. He told her about getting distracted by her freckle, and about thinking that it was impossible for her to be anything but happy because that's what her entire being had been crafted for—light. From her golden hair, to her beaming eyes, to her honey-sweet voice and red-smattered cheeks—everything about her was the embodiment of light. The brightest light he'd ever seen.

At some point during his confessions, Lucy had stopped crying, and then suddenly his lips were on hers and they were melting against each other, letting the spark between them grow into a fire that consumed them whole. He tangled his hands in her hair and angled her head back so that he could kiss every inch of her beautiful face: the underbellies of her eyes, the plump apples of her cheeks, the curve of her jaw, the scrunch of her nose, the faint worry lines of her forehead. All the way back down to her petal-soft lips. This time when they kissed, Lucy whined softly and clawed at the nape of his neck as she pressed herself flush against him. Natsu wrapped his arms around her waist in response, one hand tightly gripping the curve of her hip to try to ground himself as he drowned in all that was Lucy.

Now this is the point in which you would expect most people to start dating. They were both single now, and both had definitely been thoroughly enjoying themselves during their first kiss together. Becoming a couple was the logical next step.

But that's not what happened.

After kissing so long that their lips were swollen and bruised, the two fell asleep on Natsu's couch with her leg thrown over his waist and his head buried in the crook of her neck. In the morning, Natsu woke up to Happy walking over his face, meowing for food. Lucy, he discovered when he sat up, was gone.

Though their normal best friend relationship returned to normal in the weeks after the incident, neither brought up the fact that they had kissed each other. Natsu had always wanted to, had even tried occasionally when there was a particularly long lull in a conversation, but whenever she sensed where he was going she would look away, laugh nervously, and go off about the most random of topics, twirling her hair around her index finger. After a trying for a month, Natsu had resigned himself to his confession just being horrible timing, and that had been the only reason why she reciprocated the feelings for a moment. She had been vulnerable and broken, trying to mend herself with the love he had been providing; for all he knew, she might have been imagining he was Dan she was kissing during the whole thing.

So he left his confession behind in the winter where it belonged as spring sprouted from the fresh April showers that sprinkled Magnolia. Flowers began to bloom and Lucy started shedding her conservative winter sweaters for those inch-too-revealing shirts again. She started wearing bows in her hair, too, Natsu noticed. The section of hair that he had chopped off all those months ago was now being tied up in a ponytail at the side of her hair, decorated with a ribbon that always matched her outfit for the day. Seeing which color she chose was something Natsu always looked forward to in the morning.

Every time it rained, Lucy would tug Natsu outside the second the bell rang. There was a quiet street tucked between the back of the school and the town's convenience store that hardly any cars drove down, and there Lucy would bound from puddle to puddle, laughing her laugh every time the water splashed high enough up to splatter against the exposed inch between her knee socks and uniform skirt. Whenever she was done, Natsu would yank on her ponytail and warn her to be careful or she'd slip and fall one day. Usually she'd stick her tongue out at him and continue jumping about, but in the last week of April, Natsu's warning came true.

Natsu was busy teasing her about a mud stain on the back of skirt when she turned around to yell at him too suddenly. Slipping on the water she'd been standing in, she toppled to the concrete of the street and groaned when her elbows and knees ended up getting scraped. Natsu carried her on his back all the way back to her house, which was closest to their special street, and spent the next half hour in the bathroom cleaning and tending to her wounds.

When he was almost done patching her up, he noticed that she was crying.

Placing down the bottle of peroxide, Natsu tugged at her ponytail. "Hey. Why're you cryin'?"

The way she looked at him then was something Natsu would never forget. Never in his life did he think he'd ever seen her look that _sad_. When she had found out about Dan, she had looked miserable and full of self-hatred, but _this_ look—this was raw sadness, untinged and coating every pore of her face. Her brown eyes were shimmering with tears and tilted at the corners; her mouth was quivering despite the fact that her lips were pressed together so tightly they were pale; her entire expression just seemed to droop as she looked back at his concerned face.

"Luce?" he pressed, a hand coming forward to cup her cool cheek.

Closing her eyes, she leaned into his hand and put her own over it. She squeezed lightly and turned so that her lips brushed against his palm when she breathed out, "I'm sorry."

Natsu's eyes widened, his heart faltering for a second. "For what?"

For a moment, everything was still, the two of them locked in their intimate position as Natsu counted the number of breathes he felt her exhale against his hand. Then, still holding his hand but lowering them both to her side, she turned back to him and began to lean in. She was _so close_ , still wearing that sad expression, stray tears slipping down her smooth cheeks; so close that he could see every gold fleck in her brown eyes, every miniscule line on her plump lips. He was trembling, hypnotized with half-lidded eyes as he watched her lips get _so close_ to pressing against his own.

Before they could connect, Natsu suddenly drew back, putting inches between them so he could get a good look at her entire face. His heart was racing, breath shallow in his throat. Every part of him ached to close that distance between them again and allow himself to get lost in her just as he had over a month ago.

But instead, he swallowed roughly and asked her, "Why're you doing this?"

She blinked up at him, that same expression still locked on her face, her eyes looking utterly blank as she hesitated with parted lips. "I—I don't know."

Just like that, something in the air snapped.

He yanked his hand out of her grasp and passed it's rough, calloused surface down the expanse of his face as he jumped up from his crouched position. Turning around, he gripped the surface of the pristinely white sink as he breathed heavily, trying to calm the live wire of adrenaline he was feeling race through his veins. But he couldn't. He couldn't calm down the racing of his heart or the suffocating feeling creeping up his neck or the heated blush that was consuming his skin or the wild thoughts scrambling for attention in his head.

"Damnit," he spat.

Slamming his fists down on the counter, he whirled around and faced Lucy with a fiery look blazing in his eyes.

"I can't do this anymore, Lucy. I just—" He turned away, unable to see the wounded look that passed over her face. "I can't fucking do it anymore."

"Do what?" she asked. Her voice made him cringe—it was still thick with that same warmth it always had, even though he could tell she was terrified by the way it shook.

He waved his hand in the space between them. "This. Us. Whatever we are. Not while you're like this."

"Like what? I don't understand—"

"Bull shit." She flinched; she never liked it when he cursed. "You know what I'm talking about, Lucy. When you started acting weird after the kiss, I could understand. You don't return my feelings, then fine, I get it, I'll be your best friend like I always have. But this? You kissing me for no reason? Using me to make yourself feel better like how you used me last time? That's just playing with me emotions, and I'm not going to do that. It—" His voice broke. "It hurts too much, okay?"

"I'm not using you!" she shouted. Her hands were curled into fists, but she wasn't looking at him. "I'm just— _confused_ or—or _something._ But I am not _using you_."

He sighed. "Well until you figure out what that something is, I'm done. Strangers, best friends, something more—it's all up to you. It always has been."

Natsu walked out at that moment feeling like he was about to collapse at any second. His head felt light and fuzzy, his eyes were burning with restrained tears, and his limbs like foreign, awkward appendages.

He'd never really fought with Lucy before. Sure, there was that uncomfortable period of time in which they didn't talk all that much—but they had never yelled at each other or put their friendship on the line. Not like what he had just done. But this—this was bad. There was a tense air that followed him around the rest of the day, even after he had gotten home and had been doing homework for several hours. It was the kind of thick atmosphere that clutched at your heart and made you feel like something terrible was about to happen at any second. But something terrible had already happened. Surely it couldn't get worse.

But it did.

When Natsu had left Lucy's house that day he had made it clear to her that it was her decision how their relationship would change. For the first week that she didn't speak to him, he didn't think much of it. Sure, he was missing her, but she deserved to have the time to herself to make the big decision he had left to her. But after the second week of her not speaking to him and looking quickly away whenever their eyes happened to meet, it became clear to Natsu that she wasn't just taking her time—she'd already made up her mind.

She'd chosen strangers.

The last week of school passed, they all graduated, and then summer began. Eager to get in as much time as they could before everyone went off to their respective universities or career paths, Natsu and Lucy's friend group was constantly making plans. There was hardly a day they weren't doing something. But somehow it was being planned that whenever Natsu was there, Lucy was not, and vice versa. At first, their friends tried to mediate between the two by asking what was wrong and pushing at them to just make up already, but after Natsu flew off the handle about it one time, everyone got the hint to stop asking.

And so summer passed without the pair speaking or even seeing each other once. Natsu went off to Alvarez University in the next country over while Lucy stayed to attend the University of Magnolia. Life went on, and college life in a new country was taking up so much of Natsu's time that he hardly had any time to think of Lucy Heartfilia.

They saw each other again for the first time in the winter of their freshman year at university.

Natsu was home for a month on break and had gone out to pick up some more cat food for Happy. He hadn't even glanced at the cashier when he threw the bag down on the counter and started fishing in his wallet for the proper amount of cash. But when they announced the total of "$9.37, please," there was no mistaking it. Sweet. Warm. Just like fresh honey.

Natsu's hands froze as his head snapped up, and he thought for a moment he might black out with the sudden wave of vertigo that slammed into him. After so many months of not hearing her voice, not seeing her face, there she was. Her hair was back to the same length as when he had first met her, tickling at her elbows, and the side ponytail was gone, but it was just as golden blond as he remembered, even under the dull fluorescence of the store lights. Her smile was more shy than brilliant, but her eyes remained kind and soft. Heat was spreading across her cheeks the longer he stared at her, and he was mesmerized by it.

"Lucy," he breathed.

"Hey," she giggled, waving a little.

"You work here now?"

When they'd been friends, Lucy had no reason to work. Both of her parents had died in a car accident the summer before she had moved to Magnolia, making her a millionaire over night. Her house and tuition was all covered.

She twirled one long strand around her finger. "Yeah, since the summer. I'd come in to look for a fish and ended up leaving with a dog and a job." She laughed shortly. "I'm still not really sure how either exactly happened."

Natsu smiled. "I thought you were more of a cat person."

"I was, but," she shrugged her elegant shoulders, and suddenly Natsu was reminded of that one freckle he had stared at under the light of the stars around the same time last year, "things change, I guess."

The atmosphere suddenly turned from friendly to tense. Right. Things change. _Like you and I,_ Natsu thought. _What am I doing here? She made it very clear this summer that she didn't want to be friends. You let her choose, now you have to go along with it. No matter how much it hurts._

Natsu cleared his throat and pulled out the necessary bills to hand to her. "Guess so. Anyway, it was nice seein' ya, Luce. Glad you're doing well."

"Thanks." She smiled as she dropped his change in the palm of his hand. "Maybe I'll see you around?"

She left it sounding like a question, and even though Natsu returned her smile with a huge grin of his own and called a cheerful, "Sure!" over his shoulder as he left, he made a mental note to himself to find a new pet store to buy Happy's food at.

* * *

Natsu didn't see Lucy Heartfilia for four more years.

As the years went by in college, thoughts about the golden girl back in Magnolia got pushed to the back of his head. She remained friends with everyone from their high school group since they came back to Magnolia and saw her often, and had dated a small amount of guys that all looked just as smart and kind as she was. Meanwhile, he made new friends and—eventually—got a girlfriend of his own.

Lisanna Strauss was similar to Lucy in a lot of ways, and perhaps that's why Natsu felt so drawn to her when they first met at a mutual friend's party sophomore year. She was always smiling, always laughing, and had a kind, pure heart. Her short, silvery hair was silky between his calloused fingers, and her blue eyes would sparkle whenever he made her happy. She got along with Happy very well, and he found a second family in her older brother and sister.

Natsu loved Lisanna more than he thought he could ever love another girl after Lucy, but every time Lisanna laughed, his mind immediately went to Lucy. It was a habit he tried very hard to break, but eventually just accepted it. No one would replace Lucy completely, but Lisanna came very close. And so he allowed himself to love her, hoping that maybe one day she would make him forget Lucy entirely.

They dated for two years before they broke up.

After the first year of their relationship, noticing that it was getting serious, Lisanna and Natsu had begun to make plans with each other for the future. They would both get jobs teaching at the local high school—both were going for degrees in secondary education—and buy an apartment near her sibling's place so that they could go over there for dinner whenever they liked, and her sister, Mira, would be able to watch Happy if they ever went on vacation. It was the perfect plan, and for a long time Natsu believed that it was what he wanted. They always spent the night at each other's apartments, anyway—really, it'd be like nothing had changed. It'd be nice.

But as the second year of their relationship went on, Natsu began to be homesick. Alvarez was nice in its own way, but Natsu missed how green and fresh and lively his home country of Fiore was. He missed his old gang of friends from high school, whom now he only ever got to talk to in short video conference calls once every couple of months. Sure, his friends here were great, but none of them were ever interested in fighting, and if anyone got into an argument there was no Erza Scarlet to step in and knock some sense into them to keep the group together, and he still hadn't been able to muster up the courage to trust any of his new friends enough to tell them about his past and how he'd been abandoned by his single father at the age of ten. Mostly his new friends were just people to drink and study with. Not much more.

So when he got offered a teaching job at the high school in Hargeon, a town only an hour away from Magnolia and his friends, Natsu didn't even think before accepting it.

"What about our plans?" Lisanna said when he told her. "What about our apartment, and us teaching together?"

"We can still do those things, Lis. I asked, and they have another position open. Chemistry, just like you wanted. It's yours if you want it."

But she only shook her head. "I can't go there. It's so far away from my family, all my friends. I'd be so lonely."

In the end, though the couple both loved each other, they realized they didn't love each other enough. Lisanna didn't love Natsu enough to leave her home, and Natsu didn't love Lisanna enough to not go back to his. And so they broke up, mutually, hugged, kissed each other one last time, and promised to keep in touch. They remained close friends all the way through to graduation, and in the weeks after she was the one at his apartment helping him to pack everything up. She even drove him to the airport to see him off.

"Call me when you settle in," she ordered, hands on hips, looking at him with narrow eyes. "Video chat, too, so you can show me around the new place."

Natsu rolled his eyes and ruffled her hair, making her giggle. "Yeah, yeah, I hear ya."

She wrapped her arms around him. "Good bye, Natsu. I love you."

"Love you, too, Lis," he whispered, returning her hug just as fiercely. Though both knew the words were only in the platonic sense now, they still meant them. They'd always love each other, just now in a different way.

Natsu expected to have at least a little bit of doubts or regrets for leaving Alvarez and Lisanna behind, but as the plane took off into the air, he found himself feeling more excited than anything. A whole new chapter of his life was about to begin, and in the country he loved most. Life was beginning to look great.

And it really was great. The town of Hargeon ended up being smaller than Natsu had imagined, smaller than Magnolia for sure, but it was still bustling with all sorts of friendly people. His new apartment was at the center of town, the window of his living room looking out onto the main plaza that had a large fountain running at all times. He hadn't seen the high school yet, but over the phone his realtor had told him that the facility was only a ten minute walk from his new place, which was wonderful—he didn't need to waste money buying a car.

He had landed in Hargeon at ten in the morning and had spent until sundown unpacking his things and rearranging the furniture the movers had already placed inside. There was still some boxes of clothes and kitchen utensils that he'd yet to go through, but for the most part everything was done when he called Lisanna and showed her around the new apartment as she had requested. It wasn't the best looking thing in the world—which she had made sure to point out with the comment of, "Thank _Mavis_ I didn't agree to move there with you!"—but Natsu loved it and was ready to spend the next couple years of his life in it.

Just after he'd ordered a pizza—or five—for dinner as a reward for all his hard work, there was a knock at the door. At first, Natsu just kept laying on his couch, planning on acting like he wasn't home since he was too lazy to get up, but then he heard _it_.

"Hello?" The person called through the door. "Anyone home yet?" Sweet. Warm. Just like fresh honey.

Natsu bolted up from the couch, slipping twice on the hardwood floors on his way, and flung open the door. Standing there with her fist raised, hair cut so that it tickled at her shoulders and he could once again seeing that one freckle, eyes wide but sparkling, was Lucy Heartfilia.

"N—Natsu?" she squeaked.

He licked his dry lips and laughed dryly. "I thought that was your voice."

Heat chased its way up her face, lighting her up like a stop light, and she moved her raised hand so that it was now scratching at the back of her head. "Yeah…sorry about the shouting. It's just that I saw people moving furniture in yesterday, but no one was home yet, so I was just—yeah."

Natsu's heart squeezed painfully in his chest at how shy she was being. He found it absolutely endearing the way she was so nervous around him, just like how she was when they had first started talking in their senior year of high school. And even though he could see in how sharper the planes of her face were, and how she'd gotten two inches taller, that she was much older now, he still found himself feeling like they were high schoolers all over again, fumbling their way through life one word at a time. And maybe it was because of that that he said what he said next.

Grinning brightly, Natsu pushed the door open wider and jerked a thumb of his shoulder. "I just ordered way too many pizzas. Wanna come in and share 'em with me?"

He saw the tension literally drop from her shoulders as a tentative smile worked her way up her lips and she rolled her eyes. Walking past him inside she said, "Please. You and I both know there's no such thing as 'too many pizzas' with you."

"True," he said, laughing as he shut the door again. "Guess that just means I wanna hang out with ya."

She blushed again, but stuck her tongue out at him, too. And just like that, five years of tension melted away.

That night, Lucy stayed well past the first stars rearing their bright heads in the sky. They talked all about the adventures they'd experienced, the funny stories that made their sides split even just thinking about them now, the people they had met, the tears and fights they'd lost themselves in. As she told him about moving to Hargeon to be closer to her editor—she was a published novelist now—Happy curled up in her lap and purred with delight when she scratched at that one spot behind his ears that only she seemed to ever be able to find. They threw bits of crust back and forth, poked and tickled other until they were suffocating with laughter, and somehow overturned both the coffee table _and_ the couch in a wrestling match that had been spurred by them both bragging about hitting the gym. (Lucy won, and it definitely wasn't because Natsu got distracted by her straddling him while laughing his favorite laugh as her head tossed back, exposing once again that _weirdly cute_ freckle.)

When the sun began to rise, Lucy announced she had to get back to her dog, Plue, since that was usually the time she'd take him out and feed him breakfast. Natsu walked her to the door, and when they stood there in the entranceway, looking at each other as the first rays of sunlight illuminated their silhouettes, the timing finally seemed right. They gravitated towards each other with half-lidded eyes, and then met in a single, tender kiss.

When they pulled away, there was something sparkling in Lucy's eyes.

"Sorry it took me so long, but I think I finally made me decision," she said.

Natsu snorted, just barely remembering the time all those years ago when he had told her it was up to her to decide what they would be—strangers, best friends, or something more.

"Yeah?" he prompted. "And what's that?"

She hummed, pretending to consider even as her eyes lingered on his lips. "What do you say to something more?"

His answer was sealing her lips with his own as he pulled her back inside, grinning against the skin of her jaw as she threw her head back to laugh his favorite sound. In that infinite moment, he felt his entire world light up. There in the arms of Lucy Heartfilia, Natsu Dragneel had come home.

* * *

 **Once again, I planned on this being only 4k-5k words long, but as I was writing, I found myself rushing into the ending just to get it done and you guys deserve more than that. So I changed what the original ending was going to be, and drew everything out more because it felt more natural. Though, if there are any grammar mistakes, I'm sorry, but I was too exhausted by the end of this to go through and edit the second half. Hopefully there weren't too many. Anyway, I hope you all liked it!**

 **If you're a reader of Frozen in Time, I WILL TRY TO GET A CHAPTER UP SOON I PROMISE DON'T HATE ME. Just lacking a little inspiration for that one.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, and please Review! Your feedback always makes me so happy!**

 **-Jess**


End file.
